THE STORY THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE NEWS?

Our President delivered a campaign stemwinder the Speech from the Throne last night, and if your prior was that Grandpa Simpson would be yelling at the clouds about his empty Doritos bag, you would be correct.  (The cheering section says "energetic" or "fiery" or "pugnacious.")

He did get the name of the Tsar of all the Russias right, although I'm troubled by an echo of the Johnson administration the president fancies himself to be continuing.  "If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not."  Let me remind you, dear reader, of the "domino theory," under which Communism had to be stopped in Vietnam lest it expand through all of Southeast Asia as far as the Malay Peninsula and possibly the island nations beyond.  The boffins in Washington and the Ivy League made the plans, and over fifty thousand Normals died while the hippies protested.

It is not to foreign affairs or to abortion, which is where the speech began, that I wish to speak.  My title alludes to a passage when he turned to claiming victory for his industrial policy delusions.

It doesn’t make the news but in thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.

So let’s tell that story here and now.

America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America, in all Americans to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind!

It's investing in politically connected rent-seekers and consultants and hoping for the benefits to trickle down.

Thanks to my Chips and Science Act the United States is investing more in research and development than ever before.

During the pandemic a shortage of semiconductor chips drove up prices for everything from cell phones to automobiles.

Well instead of having to import semiconductor chips, which America invented I might add, private companies are now investing billions of dollars to build new chip factories here in America!

Creating tens of thousands of jobs many of them paying over $100,000 a year and don’t require a college degree.

In fact my policies have attracted $650 Billion of private sector investments in clean energy and advanced manufacturing creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America!

Thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced across your communities – modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, and public transit systems.

Those are campaign talking points, and undoubtedly the skeptics will point to the most recent jobs report, with much of the job gains in government employment.  Wags will have fun with "I grew up in a home where not a lot trickled down on my Dad’s kitchen table."  Exactly, because he did not work for a politically connected company like Chrysler, or whoever holds Chrysler's assets these days.

Perhaps, though, that story isn't making the news because it's going to be inconvenient for The Narrative.

[E]conomists are patiently explaining that joblessness is extremely low; inflation has abruptly cooled; GDP is growing at its fastest pace in years; a long-predicted recession is looking increasingly unlikely; and people (of all ages and income levels) are making, spending and accumulating more money than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

That might be so, and for the moment we shall pass on asking why the positive news each month gets revised downward over the following months, which the populist Right continues to call attention to.  Rather, I submit that the case for Democrat governance isn't as strong, and the reporters have to venture outside their bubbles to find it.

That map comes from an Illinois Policy Institute report, "Illinois’ unemployment rate tied for third-worst in the U.S. in December 2023, despite job gains across most industries since last year. Illinois continues to lag the nation and nearly all its neighbors in job growth."  Mouse over to that site to find an interactive version of the map.  If you're a coastal reporter in New York or Los Angeles or a freshwater counterpart in Chicago, you're not seeing the success stories, even if you venture to Belvidere en route Up North.  Otherwise, the map does not look like the electoral maps that are going to be depressingly popular over the next few months.

Meanwhile, Our President, once he recovers from last night's exertions, will continue to peddle his populist platitudes.